Sunday, September 23, 2007

Plumbing nearly complete (rough, anyway)

One of the fun parts of this job (for me, anyway!) has been watching the facial expressions of the contractors when they ponder the job before them -- having never seen ANYTHING like this before. (Actually, that's not entirely true, since each of them has worked with our builder before and therefore has probably had to deal with timber frame structures at some point.) In the case of the plumber, how to run the vent stacks up to the roof was a particular challenge since due to the SIPs panels we have no exterior stud walls to run them in...and then there are the huge timbers to work around. Here in the corner of the kitchen you can see the solution to one such case: in order to get this stack up from the bathroom below it had to be run up through the floor, then across laterally in the studs, then up through a 4x4 nailer and then through a 10x10 tie beam and finally turning to head toward the roof. Much of this run will be covered by cabinets or backsplash, but where it is exposed I will have to do some disguising of the PVC. I'll either box it in or sheathe it in something more attractive to look at.This is the tiny shower stall in the upstairs bathroom...

...and the washer hook-up in the laundry room downstairs.

This is cool: in the master bath shower I asked the plumber to route the shower line through the ceiling of the shower stall so that it drops straight down above the shower-er. I'm going to put in a wide diameter shower head with the intended effect being that of standing under a waterfall or something like that. I don't know, I've always liked to be totally engulfed in my shower...seems like a cheap luxury.